More records can be noted in the books of the swakara industry, with the highest average price in Namibian Dollar ever paid for swakara pelts and the highest price in Namibian Dollar ever for a lot of white pelts at the April pelt auction in Copenhagen. The average price in Namibian Dollars was N$696.98, an increase of 6, 54% on the N$654.20 achieved at the September 2012 auction. The total offer of 71 961 swakara pelts was sold by Agra at this auction on 21 April 2013, which is 21 942 more than sold at the September 2012 auction. The pelt offer consisted of 55,723 black, 14,764 white, 375 brown and 1 099 diverse pelts.A white lot of 53KF Selected Extra pelts fetched the highest price ever of N$2,490.80 and was bought by VolZa Milaan, Italy. They also paid the highest price in Namibian Dollars for black pelts, N$1 714.44 for a lot of 112 O Light Selected Extra pelts. The Milan-based Russians Ms Tatyana Volkova and Ms Tatyana Zaeva, who own the fur brand VolZa jointly, said: “We aim to be among the top quality brands by using the best skins, whether it is skins from sable, swakara, chinchilla and in the future also mink.” The company has its own shops with showrooms in London, Milan and Russia. At this auction, 28 buyers took up the offer of swakara pelts, with several others bidding, but not being successful. The biggest buyer of swakara was again Mr. Guida of Italy who purchased 14,371 pelts. Italy again bought the most pelts, with agents from England in second place and Greece in third place. Buyers bought very selectively, with some grades showing huge increases and others decreased, indicating that buyers don’t build stock at the higher prices, but buy for existing orders. With the commercial white pelts that went for slighter lower prices, more buyers were actively involved at the selling of the white pelts than in the past. The top Namibian producer (highest average with more than 250 pelts) at this auction was again Lovedale Farming CC of Keetmanshoop, who sold 444 pelts at an average of N$ 1047.64. The top South African producer was Hannes Vlok, who achieved an average price of R916.42 for 260 pelts.